Eight Black Horses

CHAPTER SIX

Thanksgiving Day always fell on the fourth Thursday in November, and this year it would fall on November 24.

Every detective on the squad wanted Thanksgiving Day off. On Christmas or Yom Kippur it was possible for detectives of different faiths to swap the duty so that they could celebrate their own holidays. Thanksgiving Day, however, was nondenominational.

The detectives of the Eight-Seven knew of a squad farther uptown that had an Indian detective on it. An Indian Indian. Come Thanksgiving, he was in very popular demand because he had come to this country only four years ago—after having served as a captain of police in Bombay—and he did not understand the peculiar ways of the natives here, and he did not celebrate Thanksgiving. Everyone always wanted him to take the Thanksgiving Day duty because he didn’t know lamb chops from turkeys and cranberry sauce.

There were no Indian detectives on the 87th Squad.

There was a Japanese detective, but he’d been born here and knew all about Thanksgiving, and no one would have dreamed of asking him to forego his turkey dinner.

Genero asked him to forego his turkey dinner.

‘You’re a Buddhist, ain’t you?’ Genero said.

‘No, I’m a Catholic,’ Fujiwara said.

‘This is a nondeterminational holiday,’ Genero said.

‘So what’s your point?’

‘My point is I got the duty tomorrow,’ Genero said, ‘and I’d like to swap with you.’

‘No,’ Fujiwara said.

‘You people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, do you?’ Genero said, ‘Buddhists?’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Fujiwara said.

Genero figured he was sensitive about being the only Jap on the squad.

Genero asked Andy Parker if he would like to swap the Thanksgiving Day duty with him.

‘You got no family to eat turkey with,’ Genero said.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Parker said.

Genero tried Kling.

‘You just been through a divorce,’ Genero said. ‘Holidays are the worst time of year for people just been through a divorce.’

Kling merely looked at him.

Genero figured everybody on this goddamn squad was all of a sudden getting very touchy.

The cops working the day shift on November 24 were Genero, O’Brien, Willis, and Hawes. Genero was annoyed because his mother’s big Thanksgiving Day dinner was at two o’clock. The other three detectives didn’t mind working on Thanksgiving Day. Like Genero, they were all single, but they’d made plans for later on in the day. Hawes, in particular, was very much looking forward to the plans he’d made for later on in the day; he had not seen Annie Rawles for almost a week.

‘Don’t any of you guys have mothers?’ Genero asked, still sulking.

The detectives on duty were thankful that there’d be no mail deliveries today.

They had not heard from the Deaf Man since the fourteenth, ten days ago. They all hoped they would not hear from him ever again. But they were certain they would not hear from him today. As they ate the turkey sandwiches they had ordered from the local deli, they thanked God for small favors.

* * * *

The two men sitting at a corner table in a restaurant not ten blocks from the police station were eating turkey with all the trimmings. They were drinking the good white wine ordered by the one with the hearing aid in his right ear. They were talking mayhem.

‘How’d you get onto me in the first place?’ Gopher Nelson asked.

He’d been nicknamed Gopher during the Vietnam War. His first name was really Gordon. But he’d been a demolitions man back then, and whenever there was any kind of discussion as to whether it was feasible to blow up a bridge or a tunnel or a cache of Cong supplies, Gordon would say, ‘Let’s go for broke,’ which is how he got the name Gopher. Nothing was too difficult or too risky for Gopher back then. A chopper would drop him and his gear in the boonies someplace, and he’d sneak into a deserted enemy enclave and wire the place from top to bottom and then sit in the jungle waiting for the little bastards in their black pajamas to come trotting back in. Little Gopher Nelson, all by himself in the jungle, waiting to throw the switch that would blow them all to smithereens. Gopher loved blowing up things. He also loved setting things on fire. In fact, Gopher thought back most fondly on the incendiary devices he had wired back then. There’d been something very satisfying about first seeing the flames and all them fuckin’ gooks running for their lives, and then hearing the explosions when the fire touched off the ammo in the underground bunkers, all them fuckin’ tunnels they’d dug clear across the country. Very satisfying. First you got your roast gook, and then you got the Fourth of July. Gopher wished the Vietnam War had never ended. It was hard for a civilian to find work that was as completely satisfying.

‘Well, I make it my business to know what’s going on,’ the Deaf Man said.

‘What was it?’ Gopher asked. ‘The Cooper Street job?’

‘That, yes. And others.’

‘Like?’

‘I heard you wired the break-in at First National Security.’

‘Oh, yeah. In Boston.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not many people know I was responsible for that one.’

‘Well, as I say, it’s important for me to know such things.’

‘They’re still lookin’ for us up there.’

‘What was your end of the take?’ the Deaf Man asked.

‘Well, that’s personal, ain’t it?’

‘I understand you went in for five percent.’

‘Ten. And it was just for wiring the place. I wasn’t nowhere near it when they went in. There were four guys went in. They were expecting maybe eight hundred thou in the vault, but there was some kind of fuck-up, most of it was in non-negotiable securities. So they came away with two-fifty, which wasn’t bad for an hour’s work, huh? And I figured my end—at twenty-five—was fair. The other four guys netted a bit more than fifty-six each, and they took all the risk.’

‘I can’t afford twenty-five on this one,’ the Deaf Man said.

‘Then maybe you picked the wrong man.’

‘Maybe.’

He poured more wine into Gopher’s empty glass.

‘‘Cause, like if you want a Caddy,’ Gopher said, ‘you can’t expect to pay Chevy prices.’

‘All I can afford is ten.’

‘For both jobs?’

‘A total of ten, yes.’

‘That’s only five grand apiece.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the first one, that’s a compound job, if you know what I mean. There’s really nine separate jobs in the first one.’

‘Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?’

‘How is it an exaggeration? By my count, nine is nine.’

‘You wouldn’t have to do all nine at the same time.’

‘But you want them timed to go off at the same time, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Or at least approximately the same time.’

‘Within an hour or so, yes. I don’t care about the specific hour or minute.’

‘But all of them on January second, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, who knows what I’ll be doin’ next year? You’re talkin’ months ahead here. I was thinkin’ I might go down to Miami right after Christmas.’

‘Well, that’s up to you, of course. I thought you might be interested in picking up a quick ten thousand, but if you’re not...’

‘I didn’t say I’m not interested. Would I be here if I wasn’t interested? I’m saying you’re talking low, is all. Especially for the second one. The second one’s gonna be risky, all them fuckin’ cops up there. Not to mention this’ll be three days after the first one so they’re gonna be on their guard, you know what I mean?’

‘I’m not sure you understand,’ the Deaf Man said. ‘You won’t be anywhere near the place when...’

‘I understand, I understand, you want this all done in advance, I understand that. What I’m saying is after the first one they might start snooping around, they’ll uncover what I done, they might get onto me somehow.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know how. I’m only saying.’

‘I hardly think there’s any likelihood of that.’

‘Well, with cops you never know. Also I may have to use a complicated timer. Something like what they used in the Thatcher bombing— something I can set at least a week in advance.’

‘Will you be using timers on the cars as well?’

‘That depends. Does this have to happen during the daytime? Or can it be at night? The cars, I mean.’

‘That’s irrelevant. So long as it’s January second.’

‘And do they have to be totaled?’

‘No, that’s not important either.’

‘Well then, maybe I can use a five-pound charge. A charge that size’ll open all your doors, your hood, and your trunk and give you a pretty decent wreck. The IRA’s been using hundred-pound, even two-hundred-pound charges for their car bombs, but we don’t need anything that showy, huh? What they do, they fill their bombs with a mixture of chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel, which I don’t like ‘cause it’s hard to detonate—you need a gun-cotton priming charge or else a few sticks of gelignite to set it off. What I was thinking, I figured a five-pound charge of dynamite would do the job very nice indeed. And if you don’t care whether it’s day or night, I think I know how I can detonate without a timer. But, for the other, you want a fire...’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, that’s my point. I’ll have to figure on an explosion that’ll touch off a fire. What’s in our favor, this is an old building we’re dealing with here, it should go up pretty fast, your old wood and plaster. If I use napalm—which I ain’t sure I’ll be using yet—I can make it myself, put together the soap chips and the gasoline, make the jelly, you understand? That’s if I...’

‘You can make that yourself?’

‘Oh, sure, if I decide to go the napalm route. All you need is your raw materials and a double boiler. Trouble with napalm, it don’t like a delay time of more than an hour, ‘specially in a hot room. Your gasoline evaporates. Also with napalm they can sometimes smell the gasoline, which is a tip-off. I gotta see. Whatever I use, I’m gonna have to figure a small explosion that’ll touch off the incendiary, you understand? That’s ‘cause I’ll be working with a timer, you understand? Think of it as a spark first, then an explosion, and then your fire. But what I’m saying, the second job ain’t as easy as it looks. Even getting in there won’t be...’

‘There’ll be no problem about getting in.’

‘That’s provided you get me those maps.’

‘I already have the maps,’ the Deaf Man said. Believe me, it’s all very simple.’

‘Everything’s simple to you,’ Gopher said, and smiled.

‘Yes,’ the Deaf Man said. ‘If you choose the right people, everything’s simple.’

‘For the right people,’ Gopher said, ‘you’ve got to pay the right money.’

‘How much do you want?’ the Deaf Man asked.

‘Dennis, I’ll level with you,’ Gopher said. ‘The first job is risky as hell because there’s nine of them and because of the proximity. It’s not like I’ll be working in some empty lot someplace. I’m gonna be right behind the fuckin’ police station!’

‘Authorized to work there.’

‘Sure, if these papers of yours pass muster.’

‘They will.’

‘Who’s doing these papers for you?’

‘You don’t need to know that.’

‘It’s my ass, not yours. They smell fish on those papers, the jig’s up right that minute.’

‘All right, I’ll grant you that. Someone who once worked for the CIA is preparing the papers for me.’

‘What kind of work for the CIA?’

‘He was in their Documents Section.’

‘Phony passports and such?’

‘Phony everything.’

‘So, okay, I’ll take your word for the papers.’

‘Which should calm any fears you have about the risk factor.’

‘It’s still risky, papers or not. I can’t do nine fuckin’ cars in a single day.’

‘Why not?’

‘‘Cause it’s not that simple. I’m not talking about the wiring. If I do what I’m figuring on doing, it’ll take me two minutes to wire each car. But the charge itself, there’ll be nine five-pound charges, and I can’t go in with a load like that without somebody noticing. Well, wait a minute, if I do what I’m figuring on doing, I’ll have to do them all the same day. Yeah. I’ll have to plan on making a few trips back to the truck. Yeah. So, okay, it’s a day’s work is all. But still, there’ll be cops comin’ and goin’ all the time. All it takes is for one of them to ask me what the fuck I’m doin’.’

‘In which case you show the papers again.’

‘And pray he don’t smell a rat.’

The Deaf Man sighed.

‘Listen, Den, I’m sorry all to hell, believe me. But like I said, this is my ass we’re talkin’ about.’

‘I asked you how much you wanted. I still haven’t got an answer.’

‘For the first job, the nine cars. I want seventy-five hundred.’

‘And the second job?’

‘That’s the toughest one, whatever you think. I want ten grand for that one.’

‘So you’re asking for seventeen-five total.’

‘Seventeen-five, right.’

‘I came here prepared to pay you ten.’

‘What can I tell you, Den? You were thinkin’ too low.’

‘You’ve almost doubled the price.’

‘You can always look somewhere else. No harm done, we drink our wine, we shake hands and say good-bye.’

‘I’ll give you a flat fifteen, take it or leave it.’

‘Make it sixteen, and we’ve got a deal.’

‘No. Fifteen is all I can afford.’

‘You’re getting me cheap.’

‘Is it a deal?’

‘It’s a deal. Five up front, five when I’m done on the inside, another five when the cars are wired.’

‘You’re robbing me blind,’ the Deaf Man said, but he was smiling. He had come here with an offer of ten, but had not expected to get off for less than thirty.

The man reached across the table and shook hands.

‘When can you start?’ the Deaf Man asked.

‘As soon as you get me the maps and the papers and all the other shit. Also I want to look it over first, make sure I ain’t steppin’ into a lion’s den. One question.’

‘Yes?’

‘Why do you want this thing done? I mean...’

‘Let’s say it’s personal,’ the Deaf Man said.

* * * *

The Carella house in Riverhead was a huge white elephant they’d picked up for a song shortly after Teddy Carella gave birth to the twins. At about the same time, Teddy’s father presented them with a registered nurse as a month-long gift while Teddy was getting her act together, and Fanny Knowles had elected to stay on with them at a salary they could afford, telling them she was tired of carrying bedpans for sick old men.

A lot of cops ribbed Carella about Fanny. They told him they didn’t know any other cop on the force who was rich enough to have a housekeeper, even one who had blue hair and wore a pince-nez. They said he had to be on the take. Carella admitted that being able to afford live-in help was decidedly difficult these days; the numbers boys in Riverhead were always so late paying off. Actually Fanny was worth her weight—a hundred and fifty pounds—in pure gold. She ran the house with all the tenderness of a Marine Corps drill sergeant, and she was fond of saying, ‘I take no shit from man nor beast,’ an expression the ten-year-old twins had picked up when they were learning to talk and which Mark now used with more frequency than April. In fact, the twins’ speech patterns—much to Carella’s consternation—were more closely modeled after Fanny’s than anyone else’s; Teddy Carella was a deaf mute, and it was Fanny’s voice the twins heard around the house whenever Carella wasn’t home.

When the phone rang at three o’clock that Thanksgiving Day, Fanny was washing dishes in the kitchen. Her hands were soapy but she answered the phone anyway. Whenever she and Teddy were alone in the house, she had to answer the phone, of course. But even when Carella was home, she normally picked up because she wanted to make sure it wasn’t some idiot detective calling about something that could easily wait till morning.

‘Carella residence,’ she said.

‘Yes, hello?’ a woman’s voice said.

‘Hello?’ Fanny said.

‘Yes, I’m trying to get in touch with Detective Steve Carella. Have I got the right number?’

‘This is the Carella residence, yes,’ Fanny said.

‘Is there a Detective Steve Carella there?’

‘Who’s this, please?’ Fanny said.

‘Naomi Schneider.’

‘Is this police business, Miss Schneider?’

‘Well ... uh ... yes.’

‘Are you a police officer, Miss Schneider?’

‘No.’

‘Then what’s this in reference to, please?’

It wasn’t often that a civilian called here at the house, but sometimes they did, even though the number was listed in the book as ‘Carella, T. F.,’ for Theodora Franklin Carella. Not too many cops listed their home numbers in the telephone directories; this was because not too many crooks enjoyed being sent up the river, and some of them came out looking for revenge. The way things were nowadays, most of them got out ten minutes after you locked them up. These days, when you threw away the key, it came back at you like a boomerang.

‘I’d rather discuss it with him personally,’ Naomi said.

‘Well, he’s finishing his dinner just now,’ Fanny said. ‘May I take a message?’

‘I wonder if you could interrupt him, please,’ Naomi said.

‘I’d rather not do that,’ Fanny said. ‘They’re just having their coffee. If you’ll give me your number...’

‘They?’ Naomi said.

‘Him and Mrs. Carella, yes.’

There was a long silence on the line.

‘His mother, do you mean?’ Naomi asked.

‘No, his wife. Miss Schneider, he’ll be back in the office tomorrow if you’d like to...’

‘Are you sure I have the right number?’ Naomi said. ‘The Detective Carella I have in mind isn’t married.’

‘Well, this one is,’ Fanny said. She was beginning to get a bit irritated.

‘Detective Steve Carella, right?’ Naomi said.

‘Yes, Miss, that’s who lives here,’ Fanny said. ‘If you’d like to give me a number where he can reach you...’

‘No, never mind,’ Naomi said. ‘Thank you.’

And hung up.

Fanny frowned. She replaced the receiver on the wall hook, dried her hands on a dish towel, and went out into the dining room. She could hear the television set down the hallway turned up full blast, the twins giggling at yet another animated cartoon; Thanksgiving Day and all you got was animated cats chasing animated mice. Carella and Teddy were sitting at the dining room table, finishing their second cups of coffee.

‘Who was that?’ Carella asked.

‘Somebody wanting a Detective Steve Carella,’ Fanny said.

‘Well, who?’

‘A woman named Naomi Schneider.’

‘What?’ Carella said.

‘Got the wrong Carella,’ Fanny said, and looked at him. ‘The one she wanted ain’t married.’

Teddy was reading her lips. She looked at Carella questioningly.

‘Did you get a number?’ he asked. ‘Did she leave a number?’

‘She hung up,’ Fanny said, and looked at Carella again. ‘You ought to tell people not to bring police business into your home,’ she said, and went out into the kitchen again.

* * * *

Josie was only fourteen years old. That was the problem. She shouldn’t have been in the park in the first place, not at one o’clock in the morning, and certainly not doing what she’d been doing. She had told her parents she’d be spending the night at Jessica Cartwright’s house, which was true, but she hadn’t told them that Jessica’s parents didn’t care what time Jessica came in or that she and Jessica wouldn’t be studying for a big French exam, as she’d told them, but instead would be out with two seventeen-year-old boys.

Seventeen-year-old boys were exciting.

Actually all boys were exciting.

She and Jessica and the two boys had gone to a movie and then Eddie—who was the boy Jessica had fixed her up with—suggested that they take a little stroll in the park, it being such a nice night and all. This was back in October, when the weather was acting so crazy and you could walk around in just a skirt and sweater, which was what Josie was wearing that night. October twenty-fourth, a Monday night. She remembered the date because the French exam wasn’t until Wednesday, actually, the twenty-sixth, and she and Jessica really planned to study for it on Tuesday, but at her house instead of Jessica’s. She also remembered the date because of what she had seen in the park.

Josie hadn’t wanted to go into the park at all because if you were born and raised in this city, you knew that Grover Park after dark was like a cage of wild animals, which if you walked into it you could get chewed to bits, or even raped, which she supposed was worse, maybe. But Eddie said this part of the park was safe at night, which was probably true. In this city the neighborhoods changed abruptly. You could walk up Grover Avenue past buildings with awnings and doormen and security guards—like the building Jessica lived in—and then two blocks farther uptown you were all at once in a neighborhood with graffiti all over the buildings and minority groups hanging around in doorways because they were collecting welfare and didn’t want to work. That was what her father told her when he explained why he was voting for Ronald Reagan. ‘Too many spics and niggers getting welfare,’ he’d said. Josie didn’t know about that, but she thought Ronald Reagan was cute.

So what they did after the movie, they went into the park the way Eddie had suggested. This was around midnight, a little before midnight, and the park entrance they used was a few blocks downtown from Jessica’s building, which meant this was still a safe neighborhood. Also there was a service road to the right of the entrance, and you could always see parks department trucks parked in there, so it had to be pretty safe if the city parked trucks there overnight. Farther uptown, where the police station was, the neighborhood was awful, and if you left your car parked on the street, you’d come back in the morning and find everything gone but the steering wheel. But Eddie promised they wouldn’t be going anywhere near there; he knew some good spots right here near the service road.

He really knew a lot of things, Eddie. Well, seventeen, you know.

He knew, for example, that what you did, you found a spot that was dark but that was also near a light. The marauders in this city, they didn’t like lights. Darkness was very good for marauders. ‘That’s ‘cause all of them are niggers,’ her father said. ‘They blend in nice.’ She didn’t know about that, but she thought Eddie was awfully cute, the way he led the four of them past the service road, where she could see a truck parked at the end of it, and then along the path where the lampposts were spaced maybe fifteen, twenty feet apart, and then sinned climbing up onto a sort of bedrock shelf that had trees around it and was dark, but from which you could still see the path with the lights on

It was such a nice night.

Almost like springtime.

She couldn’t get over it. She kept telling Eddie she couldn’t get over how mild it was for October, almost the end of October.

She didn’t even know where Jessica and Aaron—that was the other boy’s name—went, they just disappeared in the bushes someplace.

Eddie spread his jacket on the ground for her.

It was very dark there on the rock.

This was now maybe ten after twelve, around then.

Lying on her back, she could look up through the yellowing leaves of the trees and see millions and millions of stars. Eddie told her all those stars were suns, he was so smart, Eddie. He had his hand inside her sweater when he told her that all those suns up there maybe had planets rotating around them, that maybe they were solar systems like our own, that maybe there were people like us up there, millions of light years away, who were in a park just like this one, that maybe there was a green guy with lizard skin, trying to take off a green girl’s bra, which was what he was trying to do with Josie’s bra. She helped him unclasp it. Boys, even seventeen-year-old boys, could be very smart about a lot of things, but when it came to unhooking a bra they sometimes had trouble.

He started touching her breasts, and kissing them, and wondering out loud if the green girls up there had only two breasts—he called them ‘breasts,’ which she liked, and not ‘tits’—like the girls here on earth, or did they have four of them or however many—the mind boggled when you began thinking about alien life. He wondered, also, if the green guys up there on a planet millions and millions of light years away had a penis—he called it ‘penis’ and not ‘cock,’ which she also liked—same as the guys on earth, or did they maybe ask a girl to grab hold of their nose or their armpit or maybe one of their horns, if they had horns, maybe they found that thrilling, you know?

‘Would you like to grab hold of my penis?’ he asked.

Well, one thing led to another, you know—he was really very experienced, Eddie—and it must have been around one in the morning when he showed her how to take him in her mouth, which she much preferred to going all the way since she didn’t want to get pregnant and have to have an abortion, which her father said Ronald Reagan would do away with damn soon, you could bet on that, young lady. She had her head in his lap and was doing it the way he told her to do it when she heard the sound of an engine on the service road. She lifted her head to see if it was a parks department truck, but he whispered, ‘No, don’t stop,’ and so she kept doing it, not liking very much that he had his hand on the back of her head and was pushing down on it because, as much as she thought this was better than getting pregnant, she sure as hell didn’t want to choke. He had told her he wouldn’t come in her mouth, but of course he did, and she was trying to decide whether she should swallow it or spit it out when she saw the man on the path.

He was very tall and very blond.

He was carrying a naked woman.

The naked woman was draped over his shoulder, like a sack.

The naked woman looked very white in the moonlight.

The man walked right past the rock ledge they were sitting on, five feet below them, no more than that. As he carried the girl under the lamppost, Josie saw blood at the back of the girl’s head where her long blond hair was hanging downward.

Then the man moved past the lamppost and into the darkness, and all Josie could hear was the sound of leaves crunching under his feet as he disappeared.

‘Did you see that?’ she whispered.

In her excitement she had swallowed instead of spitting.

“That was terrific,’ Eddie said. ‘Where’d you learn to do that?’ He seemed to have forgotten that he had taught her how to do that.

‘Did you see that guy/ Josie said.

‘What guy?’ Eddie said.

‘That guy with the ... didn’t you see him?’

‘No, my eyes were closed,’ Eddie said.

‘Holy shit, he had a dead girl over his shoulder!’

‘Yeah?’ Eddie said.

‘You mean you didn’t see him?’

‘I saw stars,’ Eddie said, and grinned.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, and got to her feet, and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and clasped her bra, and pulled down her sweater, and then whispered into the darkness, ‘Jessica?’

Before they left the park, she forced the others to walk up the service road with her to where a blue Buick was parked behind the parks department truck. She looked at the license plate and read the number on it again and again, repeating it out loud until she’d memorized it. That was when she still thought she might go to the police and tell them what she had seen. That was before she realized that if she went to the police, she would also have to tell them she’d been in the park at one in the morning, doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, which would have been bad enough even without swallowing it.

That was a month ago.

She hadn’t seen anything on television about the dead lady in the park.

Maybe she’d imagined it.

She did not think she’d imagined it.

Standing outside the police station now, looking at the green globes with the white numerals 87 on each of them, she thought, My father’ll kill me.

But the girl in the park was already dead.

She took a deep breath and climbed the precinct steps.

* * * *